Schumacher family to sue tabloid over ‘AI interview’
The German tabloid Die Aktuelle published an ‘interview’ with Michael Schumacher generated by artificial intelligence. The driver’s family plans to sue the magazine, according to The Guardian.
The article promised a ‘first interview’ with Schumacher, who in 2013, during a vacation in the French Alps, sustained a serious brain injury. Since then the famous driver has not appeared publicly.
On the cover of the Die Aktuelle issue dated 15 April, editors ran a photo of a smiling Schumacher with the headline: ‘Michael Schumacher. The first interview!’.
However editors immediately ran a subtitle beneath it: ‘It sounds deceptively real’.
The quotes allegedly attributed to Schumacher read:
“My life has changed completely after the [accident]. It was a terrible time for my wife, my children and the whole family.”
“I was so badly injured that I spent several months in a sort of artificial coma, because otherwise my body would not have been able to cope with all this.”
In the end it emerged that the alleged quotes were generated by AI.
The editor-in-chief of the Die Aktuelle tabloid, Anne Hoffmann, was fired for publishing a fake ‘interview’.
According to a statement from the Funke Mediengruppe press office, this ‘tasteless and misleading article’ should not have appeared in the magazine. The owners of the tabloid emphasised that the publication did not meet journalistic standards.
Since the accident, his family has guarded his private life, with access restricted to those closest to him.
“We live together at home. We are undergoing therapy. We are doing everything we can to make Michael better and ensure he is comfortable, and simply to let him feel our family, our bond,” said the driver’s wife, Corinna Schumacher, in the Netflix documentary 2021.
As she says, they try to stay as a family and carry on with life.
“Personal is personal,” as he always said. It is very important to me that he can continue to enjoy as much of his private life as possible. Michael always protected us, and now we are protecting Michael,” said Schumacher.
Earlier in March, the German media group Axel Springer announced that staff at the newspapers Bild and Die Welt would be replaced by artificial intelligence.
In the same month, the information portal CNET laid off 10% of staff weeks after it emerged that the site had quietly used AI to write articles.
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